The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503

FROM ADAM OF BREMEN’S67-1 DESCRIPTIO INSULARUM AQUILONIS

Reading edition

FROM ADAM OF BREMEN’S67-1 DESCRIPTIO INSULARUM AQUILONIS

Moreover he67-2 spoke of an island in that ocean67-3 discovered by many, which is called Vinland, for the reason that vines grow wild there, which yield the best of wine. Moreover that grain unsown67-4 grows there abundantly, is not a fabulous fancy, but, from the accounts of the Danes, we know to be a fact. Beyond this island, it is said, that there is no habitable land in that ocean, but all those regions which are beyond are filled with insupportable ice and boundless gloom, to which Martian thus refers: “One day’s sail beyond Thile the sea is frozen.” This was essayed not long since by that very enterprising Northmen’s prince, Harold,68-1 who explored the extent of the northern ocean with his ship, but was scarcely able by retreating to escape in safety from the gulf’s enormous abyss, where before his eyes the vanishing bounds of earth were hidden in gloom.

Notes in this chapter

Note 1 · Adam of Bremen was a prebendary and writer on ecclesiastical history. The Descriptio Insularum Aquilonis is an appendix to his Gesta Hammabu Note 2 · Svend Estridson, king of Denmark.Note 3 · Immediately before this extract, the author describes the islands in the northern seas—among them Iceland—and then proceeds to speak of newe Note 4 · The reference to the “unsown grain,” and vines in the preceding sentence, are sufficiently characteristic to have enabled any one familiar w Note 5 · Evidently a reference to Harold the Stern-ruler (Haardraade). He was a contemporary of Svend Estridson, and ruler in Norway from 1047 to 106